There was a 3-minute-long interview with Per Gessle and Mats MP Persson on Kulturnytt on Swedish Radio P4 today. The guys were talking about Gyllene Tider’s latest single and the recording of their last album.
Per says Jag drömde jag mötte Fluortanten is about an absurd dream which is about a past time and romance. With the new album, one of their most important aims was to show that they are a mature pop band and this is how the guys sound at the age of 58-60. They recorded the album in France and decided that they would play as much live as possible in the studio, to have the eye contact with each other and the fusion of 5 guys who work together in real time, not to create the sounds on computer. The songs, the arrangements and the lyrics have perspective. Per says it would be impossible for him to write Flickorna på TV2, När vi två blir en or Sommartider today, but he can write another type of pop music. Mr. G didn’t try to write classic single hits or very commercial songs, but wanted to show how GT sounds in 2019.
MP says in France they could take a little different turn in the arrangement and the whole recording session was much fun and very creative.
Per adds the biggest difference these days is that he mostly works acoustically. In the ’90s MP and PG made very advanced demos. When you work in a band, it’s good to leave the arrangement quite wide open. When Per plays a song on the acoustic guitar and sings, the melody and lyrics give an impression of what the song is about, so then it’s up to Göran on keyboards and Anders on bass and Micke on drums and of course MP too to interpret it. It’s a five-piece puzzle where everyone is important. It becomes a totally different song once Gyllene Tider plays it.
The album, Samma skrot och korn is out on June 14th, but you can already pre-order it (CD-hardbook, standard black gatefold 2LP, limited edition gatefold coloured 2LP) at the usual sites: Bengans, Ginza, CDON.
Swedish Radio (Kulturnytt P4) tried to reach Per Gessle after yesterday’s great news about his 2 new solo albums. They write that Per is now in Nashville and they interviewed him via e-mail.
Swedish Radio asked Per what made him want to do duets with Lars Winnerbäck, Linnea Henriksson and John Holm. Mr. G says often cooperates with Helena Josefsson when he is making his solo albums. This time she is there again and is doing backing vocals on almost all songs and sings one song in duet with Per. Per says Helena is incredibly talented and always lifts his songs to the sky. Their voices are a perfect match. But when Mr. G started writing last summer, he started thinking about male duet partners. A regular duet can bring a different angle to the text. When a guy and a girl sings it sounds in a certain way, but when 2 guys or 2 girls are singing, it becomes something totally different. Interesting.
Per says he has many things in common with Lars Winnerbäck. Small-town background and quite similar taste in music even if Mr. G is older. Per always liked Lars. They met at Sofiero in Helsingborg when he was on tour last summer and Per asked if he wanted to sing a duet. Thank God he wanted.
Besides Helena Josefsson there were other musicians involved: Christoffer Lundquist, Clarence Öfwerman and Anders Herrlin. They were also there in Nashville to record the songs.
The autumn album will contain duets with Linnea Henriksson and John Holm. Per says John Holm was one of those who made him start writing his own songs when he was fourteen, so it’s a personal highlight in Per’s life to record with John Holm. According to Per, John Holm is still a unique singer and personality.
Regarding Linnea Henriksson Per says he had an uptempo song he thought Linnea could sing the chorus on. But after a few weeks in Nashville, he realized that it did not fit into the project, so he put it on hold. But then he had another song that screamed for Linnea’s blue tones and it became so fine. Per is very happy and proud that Linnea wanted to cooperate.
Per says to his great surprise, he had studio time left when they were done with the 14 Swedish songs. Then he thought he could do duets in English with country-girls too. He had two quite newly written songs that he thought would be great to record in the Nashville environment. He called some friends in Nashville’s music industry and got tips on 2 talented girls, Savannah Church and Jessica S. who suddenly appeared and rounded off this incredibly exciting project.
To Swedish Radio’s question regarding how Per would describe the album he said he have tried to make very beautiful songs, arrangements and productions. Stripped down, but efficient. He went started the project with no limits and rules, he didn’t want to sound a certain way or do anything in a format which is now unfortunately characterizes the entire music industry. He wanted the local musicians to be part of and create the songs’ design. Per let them play on almost all songs to see what happens, then they edited it all afterwards and took away what they thought didn’t fit.
Per’s solo projects in Swedish are always quite text-oriented. So it is this time. Perhaps more than ever.
Each song has its own story, it’s about being young and getting older. To look back but also dare to look ahead. Happiness, but also disappointment. About things don’t always turn out as planned or as expected. I have lost my mother, brother and sister in the last three years and it has certainly put its weight on the lyrics and my life in general. But life goes on.
To Swedish Radio’s question if there will be duets on stage, Per replied who knows. He has the habit from Roxette.
The first album, En vacker natt, will be out on April 28th. The first single “Småstadsprat“, a duet with Lars Winnerbäck, will be released on March 17th.
The second album, En vacker dag, will be released on September 1st.
